


Contrast of Suffering

by jesterlady



Category: Lost
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, F/M, Gen, Mental Breakdown, Mental Instability, One Shot, POV Female Character, Redemption, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-07
Updated: 2013-07-07
Packaged: 2017-12-17 23:39:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/873234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jesterlady/pseuds/jesterlady
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Claire's story of the island.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Contrast of Suffering

**Author's Note:**

> This story evolved quite rapidly. What I originally wanted to do was show what happened to Claire when she disappeared. I really think she should've gotten a flashback episode in S6-there was a lot that wasn't explained away by: "I've been here ever since you left." Anyway, then I had to tell it from the beginning especially because I wanted Desmond to give Claire Charlie's letter and her find the ring and things like that. Hopefully the writing will help convey who Claire is-more disjointed, the madder she gets and so on.  
> Disclaimer: I don't own Lost. The title is by Joni Eareckson Tada

She had always been the sort to become lost in her own dreams, overwhelmed by feelings, taken over by obsessions. She had her own wounds from the past, family issues that pressed in close on her sometimes, others almost forgotten in the pressing problems of now. The face of her father visited her dreams occasionally, but she tried not to let it bother her and, really, especially after her mother slipped away from her, he was the least of her concerns. Thomas and the baby were what primarily haunted her. His abandonment and then the crazy psychic stalking her and over all, this increasing weight and responsibility, this life inside her, demanding, sucking, needing; something she didn't want to deal with.

The plane crash should have been the needle that broke the camel's back, but, in a way, it was the most freeing thing that had ever happened to her. She had no one to feel sorry for, to feel sorry because of, no responsibility. It was like one of those reality vacations where they made you survive purely on instinct. It was like that, but with a big heavy balloon stuck inside your stomach and a constant need to urinate.

She felt carefree for some reason, like she didn't need to worry about the baby's fate, and these people had no pre-conceived notions of her. Maybe most of them were scared of her, but he wasn't. Charlie wasn't anything that should inspire confidence. He was twitchy, verbose, self-conscious, and so completely loveable. He shouldn't make her feel so safe, but he did. Maybe it was all the laughing, she didn't have time to be scared.

But even Charlie couldn't keep away the danger. Despite his best efforts she'd been taken. She remembered that later. But before she did, when she'd wandered back into the camp, confused, alone, pregnant, and traumatized, the fear had been overwhelming and Charlie had made her feel safe again anyway. Even through the unknown stalker/kidnapper/murderer/Ethan part of her homecoming. Ultimately, he'd taken care of Ethan for good, even if that part had terrified her more than any of it.

But after, when he finally asked her to go for a walk, she understood that he wasn't going to let being a murderer get in the way of protecting her. As she gazed at the slowly fading bruises around his neck she pardoned him, and she was the one he seemed to want one from anyway. They walked along the beach and she decided she wasn't going to let this latest mishap get in the way of their friendship either.

She'd almost forgotten about the baby at that point. It was just one more piece of baggage. No, that wasn't true. She thought about it every day. Giving birth on an island wasn't exactly her dream come true and when it actually happened, it was the best thing that ever happened to her. The baby, her baby boy, was perfect and she supposed she felt what every woman in the world could feel at one point in their life. Charlie: beside her, beaming. Her baby: blinking slowly at her. Kate: flushed and proud. Even Jin: confused, yet happy in the background. Not even Boone's demise could break the glow though she felt it deeply as they all did. She felt in an odd way that Boone had somehow given her baby to her by giving his life so a new one could be born. 

But when her baby - Aaron - was taken, that was the worst moment in her life and she experienced the other side of the maternal love coin. It was amazing, motherhood, and terrifying. Those hours when Charlie went to look for Aaron were like being frozen in a storm, unable to move, sullen, fearful, and drained of emotion. She wouldn't wish such a time on anyone. She'd known love as she'd never known before and it was taken from her.

But another love brought it back. Charlie's arms trembled as he gave Aaron back to her. She wept from joy and suddenly understood the Bible verses and poems and songs that had always given her grief before. She didn't want to let Aaron go, she never wanted to leave the island. She wanted to stay right there with Aaron and Charlie in such a perfect moment. Charlie's head was burned with the marks of his devotion to her and she smoothed back the hair from his wounded forehead. No thank you would suffice, but she gave him what she could.

And maybe that would have been the end of it, but the island and the mystery that surrounded them wouldn't give up, wouldn't give up on her. Charlie began acting strangely, frighteningly so, and she could almost see the demons of his own past reaching for him. It might not have scared her as much before, but she had a child now. Another loss to chalk up to her tally.

Then she remembered everything, which hurt the more for Charlie's loss. She recalled Ethan and the feeling of helplessness mixed with a ridiculous sense of peace and well being. The feeling of violation then occurred and she retched after she left the nursery she'd once viewed with such satisfaction. Kate watched her with concern, but Claire could only think of the past. What a horrific memory, but it left her with the desire to care for Aaron and never let him feel this pain. She would never abandon him the way she had been. She would never let him be consumed by this island. 

Gradually, she learned to live with it. She looked around her again and built a new sense of the world. Charlie and his care - which, oddly enough, never seemed to have been away from her - were palpable again. He obviously felt the need to re-earn the trust. He hovered, respectfully; his eyes spoke so much of longing that she felt drawn to them herself and it was with relief and satisfaction that she reached over and grasped his hand. That she kissed where she'd dreamed of. That she dared to speak the word family to herself.

The island. Always the island. Charlie was distant, Charlie was scared, Desmond was overbearing and foreboding. Aaron clung to the man he must think of as his father, but the island and honor's hold on Charlie were too strong and she didn't know what he was doing, but she did know. She should have put up more of a fight. She should have played the responsibility card, the don't-leave-me card. But she didn't. He did it for her and Aaron and she loved him for that. Loved him so much she couldn't breathe waiting for him to come back. Hurley's face put an end to that. She would be waiting forever. Desmond slipped something into her hand, but she couldn't look at it.

She wandered in a daze, clutching her child, suddenly afraid. Charlie was her constant comfort, her protector, her friend, her love. She was needlessly lost and she didn't want to leave now, not the place where he'd died. For nothing, her brain whispered. She thought of Aaron, but maybe not enough or maybe too much, because she wasn't going to leave unless she was sure. She wasn't going to risk him like Charlie had been risked.

Not that the danger didn't come looking for them because her house was blown up and men were screaming and shooting and she'd been fighting, fighting just to avoid melting away into nothing. She had a son, she had a son, but she was still lost in a fog and maybe that was the reason why it had chosen her. She woke or maybe she didn’t, and a face long past was there. She didn't think she would go to it, but he had Aaron. Suddenly she had to go; she had to find out the mystery of her past. What mystery really? But there was no other purpose now left for her and she followed her father holding her son.

She sat in a cabin and her eyes were too bright and her face too flushed to be rational, but Aaron was safe, so it was okay. John Locke came in and she had to laugh inside at his face when he looked at her. Her father had touched her forehead in a benediction and now she could see clearly. She knew everything and Aaron was so close.

Aaron wasn't there. She woke up in a cabin that looked nothing like the one she had been in. Aaron wasn't there and she tore the place apart even more looking for him. But he wasn't there and she let out a howl of anguish. Twice bereft, betrayed, and she went tramping through the jungle, heedless of smoke monsters, freighter people, or crazy French women. But Aaron wasn't there. She tripped over a log and then lay still letting the weight of her guilt suffocate her. She had done the unthinkable.

She searched the island, but while she saw many things she'd never yet seen, hatches, temples, and campsites, she could find no remnant of her people. There was nothing and she had to know that they'd left and she had to think that Aaron had gone, too. Sawyer would look after him, Sawyer would, he would, he would. Charlie should have. She returned to the beach and sat in the sand for what felt like an eternity.

But she couldn't sit forever, or she could, but she couldn't. So, she grabbed her abandoned things, abandoned like her son, and she put them in the cradle and then the ring fell out, and Claire fell to her knees and her heart broke again. Because it wasn't enough to find her son and find Charlie all in a few months’ time, but she had lost them, too. Some might say that so short a time wasn't enough to forge such a strong bond, but experience and trauma had been more than enough to weld them together and she was the only strand left of their three corded rope. She was alone, so alone, and she had failed and Charlie had left and she'd been so strong, but there was no one to hold her up anymore.

She finally looked in her pocket at Desmond's – Charlie's - letter. The words were a beacon of hope from a fresh soul that she'd never see again. She understood his gift to her and to her son. She held the ring in her hands and grasped it firmly - firmly forever - to her heart. She put it on her finger and took her things again and headed to the jungle. There was nothing left but her - she would have to be enough. So, she built her own shelter and caught her own food and laid her own traps and she grimly thought with sympathy of another lost pregnant woman doing the same sixteen years before. Now she knew what Rousseau had felt. Days turned into months and she could tell something needed to happen or she truly would know how Rousseau felt. 

One day she made a friend and that friend told her the truth. While she'd been in the cabin she'd been protected from time traveling - she could accept that. The island was moved by the evil Others - Ben. They had taken Aaron for their own dark purposes. Ben loved to take babies. Claire latched onto that amidst everything, because that she could use to tether her faltering mind. The Others proved it - catching her and poking her with pokers and lying to her. After she escaped, she took the cradle back to the beach - she would need it soon - but in a better way, a homey way, not filthy in the jungle. Charlie's ring slipped from her too thin fingers, but she couldn't be bothered with that just yet. He would have to wait until Aaron got back. She finally had a friend and a purpose again and she wouldn't be lost to dreams.

There was a darkness and a madness and that was all right, because it was better than the mind-numbing loneliness. Her friend showed her the way and life seemed like it could go on forever, but then she came across Jin in the jungle. A whole section of her life flashed open that she'd forgotten about. It was disconcerting to say the least and the sneaking revelation that Jin hadn't been lying about Kate made her feel more betrayed than she could handle. All the waves of abandonment came crowding back and a shrewd, fiendish glint of revenge started to worm its way deep inside. She followed the figure of John Locke - though not the man - she'd learned much of him. 

When she saw Kate again, she simply smiled and sang, because now wasn't the time and she saved her because Kate was for her. She planned and thought and schemed until she couldn't handle it anymore and a knife point was the only way to solve her problems. She'd forgotten what it was to talk really. It wasn't needed here. Here there were no accents with guitars, warm, soft baby breath, or friends on a beach. It was just dirt and air and metal strapped to her back and a dark mist in front of her eyes.

But Kate's eyes - her eyes as she'd struggled for life - they'd spoken to a part of Claire that was ashamed, and the shame poured out of her with tears and she threw herself at her betrayer/betrayee's mercy. She could almost see the way out - but it wasn't clear. And then her family was there - someone she could grasp a hold of with certainty - Jack was blood. But they were all going to leave her. She wasn't important enough, not sane enough. Not good enough for Aaron. Until Kate wouldn't leave without her.

There it was - the hope, the feeling that maybe it could be all right - so she joined them and they were captured and released and they did leave without her and the sub went down and she could feel pity and sadness for the first time without rage. It was pointless though - they were gone and there was no way for her to be with Aaron and why would Aaron want her anyway? She still knew the jungle. But the men came out of the water and offered a way and yet - there was no way - she could see that now. She was crazy Claire of the island and it would never let go of its hold on her. Never. She looked in her pocket - the letter - it would be her solace now.

Kate came and grasped a hold of her shoulders and Claire felt clearer with each shake. It had come to pass, what the psychic had said. She needed to raise Aaron - no one else could. Kate was not his mother. Claire was. She needed to go to her son and forget the madness that tried to drag her down. Time could dull all wounds at least. So she got in the plane and she sat in the seat and Kate held her hand tightly and the island shrunk in the distance and the weight lifted though much pain remained in all those who sat inside the plane. 

***

She holds Aaron again. She feels clean for the first time in forever and the shower isn't the reason. Kate is beside her, a friend to hold onto, Charlie's letter, old with age and grime, is in her pocket. Her friend, false, evil, fake, betraying, is gone. There is a mist, but it's clearing. The dreams will fade and be clean, brightness will break through. The island - bright, jaded, consuming, and dark - is letting go of her. The harshness of the world is balanced by the certainty of a true friend, the love of Aaron, and the memory of Charlie. She won't be lost anymore.


End file.
